Loved by enthusiasts but commonly remembered as a failed car. What's the real story behind the Bricklin SV-1?

by
Clayton Seams | May 7, 2014

Small

Medium

Large

Malcom Bricklin was an interesting fellow and a bold entrepreneur. Bricklin introduced Subaru to the North American market and went on to import Fiat X1/9’s badged as Bertones and the infamous Yugo. But he is perhaps most remembered for his self-named, Canadian-made sports car, the Bricklin SV-1.

Starting a completely new car company was very difficult in 1970s North America, but Malcom Bricklin had a vision to make his own “safety sports car” and he was determined to make it a reality. He wanted a car with futuristic gull-wing doors (so futuristic that they premiered on the Mercedes 300SL in 1954), a fibreglass body and cutting-edge safety features.

To be fair, most of his vision was translated fairly well into reality. The car had hydraulically actuated gull-wing doors, a low and sleek fibreglass body and it performed admirably in crash tests thanks to an integral steel roll cage, high side-impact “gaurd rails,” and burly front and rear energy absorbing bumpers.

Unfortunately, the cars seemed to have forgotten the “sports” part of sports car. The early 1974 cars used 220 horsepower AMC 360 V8s, which provided decent acceleration for mid-’70s standards. But a combination of supply problems at American Motors and tightening emissions regulations meant that all the 1975 and ’76 cars were sold with pathetic 175-horsepower Ford 351 V8s. To make matters worse, the four-speed manual transmission couldn’t pass smog regulations, so a three-speed automatic was the sole transmission offered. This all meant the car was unable to match the expectations set by its racy and rakish exterior.

Every single Bricklin was made with a brown interior. Ah, the 1970s.

But the power-to-weight deficit was only one of the Bricklin’s maladies. The Bricklin was produced in labour-hungry New Brunswick and the cars produced were poorly assembled even by 1970s standards. Electrical problems, warped body panels and a general aura of shabbiness dominated early Bricklins. The factory had huge backing by the New Brunswick government but the $23 million ($102.5 million in today’s money) it invested didn’t exactly buy a thriving factory.

Bricklin hoped to produce 1,000 cars per month, but total production for 1974 totalled just 780 cars. Part of the problem was the SV-1’s sky-high price. A Bricklin SV-1 cost a whopping $9,980 in 1975, when a Corvette from the same year started at $6,810. More money for less performance is always a hard sell with sports cars.

The Bricklin car company eventually went into receivership in 1975 and a few more cars were completed after that. (Funny how Mr. Bricklin managed to maintain his wealth throughout this process.)

The Bricklin remains an ambitious but flawed sports car. Though only 1,500 cars are estimated to have survived, the brand (model?) has a devoted following and many owners have found ways around the original car’s shortcomings. One of the few Bricklin-specific shops in North America is Bricklin Parts and Services of VA. The owner, Terry Tanner, was the manager of engineering at the Bricklin plant from 1973 to the plant’s closure and has more than 33 years experience of restoring Bricklins.

In a way, the cars restored by his shop build the competent sports cars that Bricklins could have been. The shop focuses on restoration and fixing the mechanical wrongs on original SV-1s. John Lodge has worked at the shop for more than 20 years and has become the authority on Bricklin restoration. According to Lodge, some of these problems include vacuum-operated pop-up headlights that had an “unbelievable rate of failure” and overpowered hydraulic door openers that actually bent the doors during usage. “We do not modify the car to change it from its original design intent,” he says.

The shop has millions of dollars worth of NOS Bricklin parts and makes its own reproduction fibreglass body panels in-house. But even with those kinds of resources, Lodge admits that parts are becoming scarce.

“Engine parts are easy [to find],” he says, but the “brake calipers aren’t made any more,” and the AMC Javelin-derived suspension components are also becoming hard to source.

Lodge has a wealth of knowledge about these cars and has real enthusiasm for them as well.

“I’m not a car guy,” he says. “I’m a Bricklin Guy” and “Bricklins are my life.” Lodge is exactly the kind of person you want to deal with when restoring a rare car.

History has been harsh to the Bricklin. Time magazine records it in its list of the 50 worst cars ever made and many regard the car as a failure. But this negativity doesn’t seem to hinder enthusiasts’ devotion to the strange safety sports car.

“It drives amazing,” says Lodge, who continues to say that everyone who gets a ride in an SV-1 leaves with a smile on their face. Maybe it’s time we reconsidered the little sports car from New Brunswick.